Fairey's Theory of Awesomeness (Nominate 2016)

Part of the series Nominate 2016, hoping to open up local government a bit so y'all will at least think about running in 2016.  

Fairey's Theory of Awesomeness

Some elected people think they have been elected because they are awesome.  For those who think this, all they will likely do, once elected, is continue to radiate their awesomeness.  Avoid members of Team Awesome; please don't be one and please don't vote for one.

I've noticed there are really two main kinds of people who are politicians, by which I mean elected people like me.  There are those who think they are elected because they are awesome, and those who have a broader understanding of why they are elected and what the role is.  In my opinion you do not want to vote for the former, and if you run you do not want to be the former either.  

How can you pick who is on Team Awesome?

Those on Team Awesome will of course differ in their individual practice but can often be discerned by markers such as:

• Low attendance at meetings, briefings and the like that are part of the elected role, particularly if formal minutes are not being taken or the public are not present and/or it is a consultation process where listening and answering questions is key - why would they need to go, they already know how to be awesome!
• Often very quick responses to public scrutiny such as angry constituent emails, but then no actual follow through on the issue raised - the very fact that they have shared their awesomeness with you by replying is sufficient!
• A lack of detail in their reporting, or possibly even just no reporting at all - they don't need to prove their awesomeness to anyone, yo, it is self-evident.
• Confusion between governance and management/operational and also potentially quite a removed idea of governance - their role is to be awesome, that's it!
• Good blurb and soundbites - because of the awesomeness!
• Inability to have a detailed dialogue about an issue beyond soundbites - detail and knowledge is for people who aren't awesome!
• Few completed projects, few if any with much complexity - the awesomeness does not fit well with persistence and consistency, two qualities essential to getting projects done in a democratic environment, sadface.

If you think the above is acceptable once you are elected then please don't run.  This isn't what being a politican is.  For some posts I wrote much earlier (2013) on what being a politician is and can be see here and here.  I'll be revisiting that theme later in this series.

Why does it matter?

Sadly some do operate on the basis of their own awesomeness, and often times they get re-elected too, and they not only give all politicians a bad name, more importantly they fundamentally undermine what can be achieved through the democratic process.  They short change constituents by having a limited vision of the role, of what local government can achieve, and also by spending the time and resources they have access to on being awesome instead of Getting Stuff Done.  (More on what Getting Stuff Done can look like in another post!)  Often they get in the way of people who are trying to get on with the Getting Stuff Done, sometimes deliberately (especially if they are a small government advocate I have found, aka a small c conservative), sometimes accidentally by diverting attention and resources, and other times by the sheer amount of will to live they suck out of other people around them.

TLDR:  It is better to get awesome stuff done than to be seen to be awesome.  If you care about this and want to be involved in making it better then nominate, if you want to be awesome then find somewhere else to do that please. 

If I had a million dollars, could I still have socialism of the heart?

Post-election, my bus driver last night waxed lyrical about John Key "not having a mandate to sell state assets, 75% of New Zealanders are against, they just won't do it". Yet first thing this morning I saw this. Before I even sat down to think about gender equity.

Losing Carmel Sepuloni is terrible news. Not only because there's now no Pacifica women in parliament, but because Ms Sepuloni, with Labour's already departed Lynne Pillay, flew the flag determinedly for survivors of sexual violence:

Gone. Who, out of the current crop of women MPs, is going to take over the role of speaking out for women who survive violence?

Tariana Turia, with her innovative approach to ending family violence, "the look"? Judith Collins, with her rape culture supporting comments on male-on-male sexual assault? (Note: when we dismantle rape culture, it will not be acceptable for ANYONE to be coerced, forced or pressured into doing anything sexual).

The departure of Simon Power, with his personal committment to building better responses to sexual and family violence influenced by the murder of Sophie Elliott, is also a huge loss for parliament. Without him the National Party are harder right, less able to work across difference to produce good policy, like the improvements for survivors of sexual violence going through court process, or the extension of the national advocacy role for Louise Nicholas.

Well-known feminist Sue Kedgley, also gone. Just one feminist act among many, Ms Kedgley voted to decriminalise prostitution alongside all the other Green women, most of the Labour women, and one fifth of the National women.

Carol Beaumont's championing of pay equity, gone from parliament. Departing Steve Chadwick, another committed to women's rights in terms of maternal health, rights-based sexual and reproductive health and abortion reform despite Daddy Left not liking it. These Labour MPs flew the flag for women.

Who is going to pick this up and carry it?

Judith Collins wants to restrict access to abortion. Hekia Parata, an improvement on Georgina Te Heuheu in that she doesn't describe the Ministry of Women's Affairs as a "sexist relic", is yet to impress as a strong advocate for women's rights. Nikki Kaye and Jacinda Ardern are not scared to call themselves feminists - both may be important in putting gender on the agenda in their parties. Annette King and Lianne Dalziel have the experience in the house to continue arguing for where a women's place should be.

Women in New Zealand desperately need some of our parliamentarians to step up to the mark to challenge our violence stats, our pay equity stats, the cultural supports for violence against women, sexism in the media, the positions of immigrant women in our communities, the hypersexualisation of girls (tricky but possible this, without turning into sex-hating abstinence cheerleaders), the work-life balance available to all whether we are parents or not, the different experiences women have of the benefit system because we are often the ones with primary responsibility for parenting and care-giving etc etc etc. The best bet, on current form, looks to be Catherine Delahunty and the band of new Green women.

And queer rights post election? The voting records of National's top ten listed MPs are consistently homophobic. Gerry Brownlee says queer people are "not the same as other people"; Nick Smith says legislation protecting transpeople would be a "step backwards for our country"; and Judith Collins said of civil unions:

Is this a human rights issue? The census figures stated that 0. 3 per cent of adults in New Zealand say they live in a same-sex relationship – not a very large portion of the population – as opposed to the more than 45 per cent of adult New Zealanders who are married.

The queer caucuses will have to work across parties if they want to address queer issues like bullying in schools, adoption and partnership rights, heterosexist media and queer bashing. Will they? Will National's Chris Finlayson realise not all queer people want to be celibate? And will some of the straight parliamentarians support queer rights? History shows if they do, they will probably be women, with 76% of women MPs voting for the Civil Union Act cf just 50% of male MPs.

I realise some on the left will think my interest in rights for women and queer people post this election is playing identity politics when the *real* issues of class and dosh should be being attended to. I disagree. I think we should be aiming higher. It's time for our parliamentarians who believe in equity and fairness and compassion - because those are the values which these issues have in common - to stand up for having a socialism of the heart:

My message to the 1% the National and Act parties - remember this last line. Please.

Political Parties and Family Violence

Jared at Left Wing rants has written an excellent overview of political parties and their attitudes to/policies on reducing family violence:

The most worrying thing for me is the lack of discussion around education. Something that has struck me in my research is that many people aren’t aware of what is actually health in a relationship. This is something that people should be educated about in school (similar to with sex education) to prevent them being trapped in an unhealthy relationship without knowing. This would make it easier for people to talk about it and seek help when they need it, as well as making it more likely that perpetrators would seek help. But overall, Labour, the Greens and Mana have good policies focusing on support for victims as well as prevention. National, on the other hand, have more punishment, while ACT don’t seem to care. The Māori Party seem to fit somewhere in the middle.

Check out the whole post.

Representation of women in TV campaign openings

I'm not going to be looking at broader issues about the addresses in the post, but am quite happy to have those discussions in comments.  Just wanted to focus this bit directly on the representation of women aspect.  I'm laying out these brief observations in the order that they have appeared on telly.

Friday night
National
Outline:  John Key giving a speech, getting applause and then taking questions from the astonishingly well behaved audience.  Whole 20 minutes of this.  Visuals only of audience &; Key in that context, nothing else.  Only people who got to say anything other than Key were the questioners, whose faces you couldn't see.
Representation of women:  Only known National person featured was John Key.  He would have been speaking probably 80%+ of the time.  Of the questioners two were men and four were women.  Guess who asked about the Global Financial Crisis and infrastructue and who asked about education, health and benefits?  Yep, the former for the men, the latter for the women.  The other question was about crime, and framed from a personal safety angle, and thus naturally asked by a woman.  

Labour
Outline:  Started with history of Labour, contrasting their achievements in Government since 1938 with National's, highlighting a lot of their key themes such as keeping state assets, looking after the vulnerable, being first in the world at various things.  Next section featured current Labour MPs talking about why they are Labour, how their backgrounds connect with their political values. Final section more policy focused, particularly on the differences between National & Labour, still featuring MPs (including Goff) doing the talking.   
Representation of women:  Voice over was done by a woman.  In the history section mostly Labour men featured.  Lots of archival footage that featured women as well as men, some with voice-overs or speeches which were male voices.  Of the Labour MPs featured there were 7 men (Goff plus his father briefly, O'Connor, Cunliffe, Nash, Robertson, Davis briefly) and 2 women (Sepuloni, Ardern).  Have no idea what proportion of time they all spoke for, but definitely more time for the men than the women.  Subjects covered quite disparate, didn't notice a clear gendered trend around subject matter for Sepuloni and Ardern versus the rest.  E.g. Cunliffe talked about tax, and so did Sepuloni.

Greens
Outline:  More traditional opening.  Featured co-leaders walking around Wynyard Quarter (mainly) talking about various policy areas and principles with some examples and vox pops from a variety of people.
Representation of women:  Only Greens featured are the two co-leaders, so that's an equal balance in terms of female/male.  However I did feel that Metiria got more speaking segments than Russel.  For the vox pops which were scattered through-out there were 10 women and 5 men.  Some of these individuals appeared more than once.  It seemed like there were more appearances from women than men, dd anyone actually count? NB:  I'm not intending to address other diversity issues thoroughly with this post, but the ethnic diversity was very clear, and one of the vox pops was in sign language.

Saturday night:
ACT
Outline:  Started with Brash talking to camera, then his voice over footage of him talking with small groups of people (one, two or three), then a group of ACT candidates talking around a table (very similar to 2008 iirc). 
Representation of women:  Brash dominated through-out.  With the footage of him with other people it really was almost entirely Brash and other men.  I am pretty sure I only saw one woman actually in conversation with him, although there was one shot with a lot of women seated behind where he and a man were talking together.  When it came to the candidate roundtable there were four men featured (Brash, Seymour, Whittington and Banks) and two women (Isaac and McCabe).  Brash, Seymour and Isaac got the most screen time I thought, McCabe definitely the least, with Banks getting surprisingly little too.

Maori Party

Outline:  Basically a recitation of value statements of the Maori Party, jumping back and forth between different people, including MPs, candidates and vox pop.  Ended with scrolling list of achievements. 

Representation of women:  Pita Sharples and Tariana Turia seemed to get roughly equal time to me, the other candidates featured were four men and one woman.  The cuts between people were very fast and I couldn’t keep up but it looked like it was pretty even between male and female, with the exception of the issue with more male candidates than female. Music featured both male and female voices.

 

United Future

Outline:  Peter Dunne talking through-out, either to camera or over clear animated footage illustrating his points.  People were represented throughout it by stick-figure types.  

Representation of women:  Only live person was Dunne.  A family was always represented by a man, woman and 2 young children.  In regard to income splitting used a pie chart in which the woman earnt less than the man.  Did have a picture with the woman going out to work (in a skirt suit).  When Dunne talked about their credentials as the "real outdoors party" it only seemed to be men in the outdoors.  Five pictures of old people, only one openly female and she was clearly engaged in childcare.

NZ First

Outline:  Winston talking, then voiceover from Winston over representations of stock footage to match the key problems he mentions.  Brief vox pops speaking to specific past NZF achievements – one middle aged man, one . 

Representation of women:  The vox pops featured one late middle aged man,  3 young women, one young girl, one young man.  The impression I formed of the stock footage was that it was not from NZ, probably from the USA, and thus did reflect some of the gender bias we see in media from there; e.g. most people were slim and white, men were shown doing manual jobs.

The Conservative Party:
Outline:  Colin Craig talking direct to camera through-out.
Representation of women:  None.

Alliance

Outline:  Woman voiceover.  Kevin Campbell talking through-out, directly to camera alternating with very fast moving footage of street/park scenes.  

Representation of women:  There was definitely a mix of men and women in the footage but hard to discern due to being sped-up.

Libertarianz

Outline:  Man and woman in front of fenced off Christchurch CBD. Chch, both talking to camera, with some short bits that were like Powerpoint slides of key points. Mostly talked about proposing a free enterprise zone for Chch.

Representation of women:  Pretty equal balance between the two presenters (both are candidates).  The woman did refer to the response to the Christchurch earthquake now being “a man-made disaster”.

ALCP

Outline:  Man and woman in first shot, alternate between them for talking, with other half of the screen dedicated to1989 styles graphics illustrating their point about decriminalisation of marijuana.

Representation of women:  Looked roughly equal between the male and female presenters (again, both are candidates) to me.

NZ Speculative Fiction Blogging Week: Women in Power

I'm super happy to be able to kill two birds with one stone and write a post that serves as not only a suffrage day post but also part of NZ Speculative Fiction Blogging Week. It's a snapshot of an honours research essay in progress and all my half formed ideas about the texts, so my apologies for this being so 'bitty' and the lack of conclusions - I'm not even going to make an attempt to have the paragraphs naturally flow into each other.

The topic is looking at two novels written the late nineteenth century which portray a future New Zealand in which women hold political office. I'm looking at how far these matched and related to the reality and the conceptions of gender they explore.

The two main texts (their titles link to free ebooks via the NZETC):

Julius Vogel's ‘Anno Domini 2000: Woman’s Destiny’ imagines the world in the year 2000, in which women, by common though not universal assent, are the primary holders of political office simply because they are believed to be better suited to the task. It primarily follows both the political career and romantic exploits of 23 year old Under Secretary for Home Affairs (later Imperial Prime Minister) Hilda Fitzherbert, but large sections of the novel are devoted to explorations of both political systems and technological developments. Vogel was a prime minister of New Zealand, responsible for introducing an earlier (unsuccessful) suffrage bill, and 'Anno Domini'  is widely - though inaccurately - considered to the the first NZ science fiction novel (though it was certainly one of the earliest). It received a lot of attention in the year 2000 for the accuracy of its prediction, not just in terms of women's place in society - in his introduction to the rereleased version Roger Robinson lists some of these (I would dispute some of his points, but they are still significant).

Less well known, and considerably more bizarre, is Edward Tregear's 'Hedged with Divinities' which follows the journey of a male protagonist who wakes us from a trance to find that all men (globally) have died of a plague which remains unexplained. In their absence, and in the face of the incompetence and shock of the remaining women – the socio-political institutions and the infrastructure of the country have collapsed, and Jack (the protagonist) sets about restoring the country to a functioning society. However the question of repopulation remains, and he reluctantly agrees to a mass marriage, despite his only interest being in his lover, Nelly, and at the end of the novel, as babies (both male and female) are born to his wives, he sets sail for a remote pacific island with her.

Things I am writing about, or that I've noticed, include:

Have some fun

It's election year, and Family First are responding by running a poll about how the government should leave families alone, except poor families and women, and also the government should define families more.

Go have your say it's all democratic like.

Possibly we should also take a poll on favourite illustration. I'm quite taken by the poor soft toys being exposed to a bra.

I am here for my father

Metiria Turei, co-leader of the Green Party, gave a speech in reply to the Prime Minister's opening address to the House.

It is a stunning speech, which she opens by saying, "I am here for my father."

She goes on to talk about her father as an ordinary New Zealander, who just wanted a decent job, so that he could earn enough money to support his wife and their two children.

Even as text printed on a page, it is a powerful speech. I urge you to read it.

Green Party response to the Prime Minister's opening statement: I am here for my father

(Disclosure: I am not a member of the Green party, nor of any political party, and I have never voted Green.)

Wellington Local Body Elections - a follow-up

So just before the polls closed I posted my endorsements for the Wellington local body elections. A number of candidates posted on replies to my blog - most of which I found pretty amusing. Now that it's all over and Celia Wade-Brown has shown how appalling she is in record time by speaking at the "giving government cover to lower the legal protections of film-workers" rally, I thought I'd respond to two of those comments.

It was awesome to see Kerry go - the day after the announcement a friend of mine drunkenly yelled out "Kerry's gone" in a cheap malaysian restaurant, and everyone cheered back at him. In the days between the election, and the announcement that Kerry had really lost, I got some pointed comments from some friends and family members who knew I hadn't voted for mayor.

On my blog I had criticised CWB for being a greener tinged Kerry Prendergast, and not being left wing. She replied:

How about for/against a casino? for/against more road tunnels? for/against Hilton hotel on outer T? All differences between incumbent's and my vote.

So when I suggested that her economic policies were no different from Kerry's and this was all she had. This is her best demonstration of her commitment to redistribution of wealth? Or her commitment to providing services to all regardless of income? I quoted this list to people who gave me shit about not voting for her, while we were waiting for the result - and they had to concede my point.

The other candidate who posted, and the real reason that I'm writing this post(apart from getting in early having a go at our new mayor) was Iona Pannett. One of the things that I expressed lots of frustration with in my blogpost, was council candidates who were more interested in telling us about their family than their policies.

Iona Pannett objected to this:

Your criteria for voting seems a little inconsistently applied to candidates and is an interesting one for a self-declared feminist.

It was after feminist writers and thinkers who have rightly done a great deal to deconstruct the split between the public and the private, a split often upheld by male thinkers and legislators.

I don't think people should have to deny they are parents and think it important that people standing for public office are well rounded people.

Just for the record, feminists who theorised about the public and the private, had more on their mind than the importance of those running for office talking about their family. That was a campaigning trick well before the feminist movement. But I thought I'd talk a little bit more about the serious point I was making behind the jokes.

You only get a few hundred words to convey where you stand to voters in a council blurb. Many of those running throw out inanity after inanity - telling us who they are, not how they'll vote. These blurbs may seem ridiculous, but they have a purpose, a purpose Daran Ponter made clear:

My wife Vickie and I, and our two children, Crystal and Thomas, enjoy all the normal things Wellingtonians love - Saturday morning sports, mountain biking, watching a game at the stadium and occasionally sleeping in!

The purposes of the children, and the heterosexual partner, and the other mentions of family in blurbs is to scream I'M JUST LIKE YOU at the voter. Ponter is particularly specific about the voter he is just like - normal is heterosexual, middle-class and able-bodied, at minimum.

Iona Pannett made this explicit in another way in her suggestion that 'well-rounded' people make good councillors - she was just proving that she was well-rounded when she mentioned her child (I've actually known people of all metaphorical shapes with children). I find this deeply offensive I think those who don't have children, those who can't have children, and those who don't have the resources to raise their children in Lambton ward (another point Iona Pannett made sure to mention) will make just as good councillors as Iona.

If you have only a few hundred words to persuade people to vote for you, and you choose to use it to talk about your family, then what you are saying is screaming your normality is more important than telling people what you believe.

That seems like as good a reason not to vote for someone as any.

thoughts on hamilton election results

it's been a nice weekend, after some very good election results around the country. i thought i'd put up some random thoughts specifically about the results in hamilton (cos i think everyone has heard enough about auckland, wellington & christchurch!).


that we have a new mayor is actually quite surprising, in that over a month ago, the polls showed there was absolutely no competition. i think bob simcock's campaign suffered from two things: a huge sense of complacency & considerably negative coverage in the waikato times. there also is the fact that many people are unhappy about the huge surge in council debt, the financial drain and lack of promised economic benefits from the v8s, the secrecy around mr simcock's funders (and the very related issue of montana catering getting some prime city council contracts, including an exclusive contract for the v8s).


so there was a strong sense of dissatisfaction there, but nowhere to focus it. julie hardaker is certainly not a well-known figure in the city, she didn't have any kind of profile prior to this campaign, nor has she had any involvement in politics. but the coverage she got during the campaign was pretty positive, and i guess that gave voters a place to park their discontent.


things i'm sad about: that the very excellent mark servian didn't get through, and the lack of ethnic representation. no pacific islanders, no asians, and the only person who could be considered maori is the ex-netballer margaret forsyth. it's not that people didn't stand, and it's not that they didn't have a profile. for example matiu dickson, another excellent candidate, is not only known for having been the chair of one of our most successful public high schools but also made the local news for publicly challenging that nasty garry mallett at a political meeting a few years ago. he's an incredibly capable person, but it wasn't enough.


which is a big problem, particularly in hamilton. it's almost impossible to unseat established sitting councillors. people tend to vote only for names they know or who have a previous media profile. which means that the city misses out on some excellent people. what's the alternative? taking some time to find out about candidates by either attending meetings, researching them online or picking up the phone and giving them a call. i think we do have a responsibility to take the time to do this.


it's name-recognition that got the owner of the now-defunct kiwi airlines, ewan wilson, through again. even though the last time he was a councillor, he had the poorest attendance record & in my opinion did not provide adequate representation for the city. i just can't believe the westies (of hamilton) voted him back in.


the good news: gary mallet lost. i can't tell you how happy it makes me that the ACT party president (or ex-president? i can't be bothered keeping up) is not representing our city in any way. he lost the WEL energy trust elections last year and yesterday he was the highest polling loser, which is not good, but margaret forsyth kept him out, which is brilliant.


also good is that the rates control team ticket (centre right) was unsuccessful in the city. despite the fact that they had the backing of greypower (who claim to be politically neutral) & federated farmers, they stood 11 candidates and have 2 seats. they were much more successful in the environment waikato elections, which i suspect is not going to be too good for the environment. but i feel sorry for many of those candidates, who would have had to put money into what looked like a pretty expensive joint campaign but really got no benefit out of it. maybe they did better than they otherwise would have, it's hard to tell.


it's great to see that martin gallagher was the highest polling councillor. perhaps a sign that the west now regrets not putting him back into parliament. but most interesting, and just to prove my theory about well-known names wrong, was the fact that lisa lewis was the lowest polling candidate from the east. despite the fact that she had the most free publicity from the times compared to any other candidate. still, it goes to show that a failure to grasp the political issues & to answer questions and resorting to gimmicks like pulling out a tequila bottle at a mayoral candidates meeting mean that you won't be getting the votes.

Congratulations Julie!

The results of the Auckland elections are in. The headline news is that Len Brown beat John Banks.*

In other news from Auckland, our own Julie was elected to Puketapapa Community Board. Congratulations!** Here are some cupcakes to celebrate:



Talking of awesome feminists - Sandra Coney was elected to the new Auckland City Council.

Consider this a thread to talk about the awesomeness of Julie, or the local body elections round the country, whichever takes your fancy.

* I would have been tempted to vote for Len Brown myself if I lived in Auckland, and lose all my radical cred, because I find free swimming pools just that exciting.

** When discussing Julie's victory David Farrar not only spells her name wrong, but only mentions it in the context of her marital status. Sexism alive, well and kicking round the blogosphere.

Wellington Local Body Elections - 1 woman's view

The time has come again where I have to try and figure out which of the various candidates for local body elections I can bear to vote for.

Here is a brief summary of my decisions - too late to do anyone else any good sorry.


Mayor
I'm not opposed to voting for lizards so the wrong lizards don't get in. However, I have my limits. So I'm not voting for Mayor. I am aware that a large number of Wellingtonians will outraged by this, but I'm not convinced that Kerry Prendergast with a slight green tinge will be improvement on Kerry Prendergast. Celia Wade-Brown, the only serious contender for mayor, has made it clear that economically she is no different from Kerry Prendergast. Recently the rates burden has moved from commercial to residential - a move Celia Wade-Brown supports. A 'green' approach to local body politics, can and has been cover for privatisation and an anti-people pro-business way of working.

I would get great pleasure from Kerry losing her job, and while normally that would be enough for me too vote for her opponent, but I cannot support Celia Wade-Brown.

Lambton Ward
What's super frustrating about local body politics is how hard it is to vote for any of them, because they seem to think voters are more interested in their CV, their love of Wellington and their family, than their actual policies.

1. Stephanie Cook - She's probably the reason that I bothered to vote at all. She has a good record of being on the right side of issues - and manages not to mention her family. So I'll vote for her - even though I think making her main campaign planting fruit trees is pretty inane.

2. Marcus Ganley - He has a clear statement against privatisation in his blurb, and is equally clear about his position on water metering. I've made me feelings about the labour party known on this blog several times. But with obvious (Alick Shaw) exceptions I think you can sometimes do +worse than a Labour party candidate on a local body. They tend to be on the left of the party, and they have a basic grasp that they should pretend to be on the side of people rather than business - under like their Green party counter-parts.

3. Mark Greening - I shouldn't rank him - because he believes in engaging youth to stop Graffiti - whereas I think that Graffiti is awesome. However, he's pro-library and he doesn't support water metering, or mention his family. Plus free wi-fi.

Yep I'm super unprincipled.

I'm not ranking:

Ioana Pannett - I vote for her last time, because I hate Alick Shaw just that much. I have appreciated her work against the liquor ban. But she supports the shifted burden of rates - Green party politics are particularly suseptible to neo-liberalism on councils. Plus she mentions her kid in her bio - which is the last straw.

John Bishop - I respect that he puts in that he's business friendly, I do like to see some policies, and respect for that fact that voters might want to know where you stand. But business friendly is Maia unfriendly.

Adam Cunningham - He actually ends his profile - SO IF YOU LOVE WELLINGTON TOO - VOTE CUNNINGHAM 1 IN LAMBTON WARD - just like that all in caps. I am not ranking him Number 1 - so clearly I hate Wellington.

Michael Fowler - He goes into the third person in his bio 'most of our lives were spent in Wellington' - I assume he means him and his wife - but he hasn't even mentioned her. Or possibly he has delusions of grandeur.

Ian McKinnon - Like John Bishop I respect that he made his politics clear, but I don't share them.

Kris Price - So I almost ranked him 4th just for not mentioning his family. Buthis complete lack of politics, as opposed to urban design ideas put me off.

Wellington Regional Council
I find it super difficult to choose candidates for the Wellington Regional Council. They're very pro-business.

Paul Bruce - Just to prove that my prejudice against the Green Party is not my ruling emotion.

Judith Aitken - I suspect she's less than awesome, but she has some good policies, and activism in the women's liberation movement goes a long way with me.

Chris Lipbscombe - clearly I'm getting soft near the end of the ballot, because I voted for him even though he mentions his family.

Not voting for

Sally Barber - Her water policy sounds suspiciously like she supports water metering

Dianne Buchan - More 'business is awesome' 'look at my business experience'

Charles Finny - I would vote for most people in Wellington before I'd vote for the former CEO of the Wellington Regional Chamber of Commerce. Plus he hates bus drivers - how can anyone hate bus drivers? Bad person!

Michael Gibson - He hates trains, and writes about himself in the third person. Where do these people come from?

Chris Laidlaw - I may get soft on Labour party candidates in local government. But I draw the line at former MPs.

Terry McDavitt - Blurb is non-stop inanity.

Daran Ponter - If he'd had more actual politics I probably would have voted for him. But his material is so slimy - and he spends so much time talking about his family that I just couldn't do it.

Bill Rainer - Why do these people think we want to know about their experience rather than how they will vote?

Fran Wilde - See I have these vague warm feelings towards her, because of her role in Homosexual Law Reform, but that was almost 25 years ago, and she's pro-business.

DHB
My main criteria is choosing people who believe in fighting for the health system, and it's workers. Also avoiding anyone who might think their religious beliefs are relevant to other people's health care.

1. David Choat - I broke my very important rule and forgave him for mentioning his family - partly because I know them, but more importantly because he has policy that I agree with.

2. Margaret Faulkner - Nurses who are clear where they stand on politics are worth voting for.

3. Maureen Gillon (you may notice that I'm voting for people in alphabetical order - this is because I'm lazy). Another nurse.

4. Malakai Jiko - On my list on easy gimmes is people who have worked for Primary Health Services such as Newtown Union Health.

5. Peter Roberts - He used to work for the doctors union and the coalition for public health - I would totally have voted him higher if only his name was further up the alphabet.

6. Peter Kelly - He used the phrase 'social justice' in his list. When it comes to the Health Board it doesn't take a lot.

7. Judith Aitken - see above.

8. Russell Franklin - his heart is obviously in the right place, even though he has a dodgy past and 8 is pretty far down my list.

9. Mark Jacobs - You were inane enough that I ranked you 9 - congratulations.

Not Ranking

Elizabeth Anderson - She accepts the funding limitations, and thinks her management experience is what's important. Nope.

John Apanowicz - Management. Management. Management.

Maureen Cahill - She doesn't just mention her family - she mentions her cat.

Camilia Chin - She used to be the 'Corporate Management Reporting Accoutnant for the CCDHB' - not my priority.

Barbara Donaldson - I don't disagree "Our DHB is in trouble" I do disagree "The Board needs poeple like me with experience in governance, management and health systems."

Andrew Holmes - actually your young family don't give you perspective for visionary governance FFS.

Virginia Hope - All management speak all the time.

Helene Ritchie - I'm PREJUDICED against random CAPS.

David Scott - If you're going to advertise your christianity when you're running for the Health Board that better come with a disclaimer - "I support a woman's right to choose" or else I'm not voting for you.

Donald Urquhart-Hay - I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I saw a House of Cards at a far too impressionable age to vote for anyone called Urquhart.

Nigel Wilson - The ratio of meaningless jargons to actual words is far too high.

Jack Wood - Funnily enough when thinking about who I want to run my health system and 'international business consultant' isn't it.

Now I've done my democratic duty I'm going to bed. I'll do a report of the abortion protest tomorrow I promise.